A REGIONAL rail union boss has called for maintenance of all track in the UK to be carried out by Railtrack itself rather than being contracted out, as a "first step" towards renationalisation of the rail network.

Speaking in the wake of the Hatfield tragedy, Stan Herschel, regional organiser with the RMT union, said having responsibility for rail maintenance in the hands of a single company would make for a more efficient and safer system.

"There would be a better chain of responsibility, more and quicker action and it may lead to a safer rail system," he said. "What we've got at the moment is not working."

While the precise causes of the Hatfield rail disaster will not be known until the results of an inquiry into the tragedy, regional Railtrack director Nicholas Pollard confirmed today that part of the cause was believed to be a form of track deterioration known as gauge corner cracking.

Mr Pollard confirmed Railtrack bosses had been told before Hatfield that there were problems with the line there, and said remedial work had been scheduled for November.

But he insisted they had not known how bad the problems were. If they had, action would have been taken much sooner. At the moment overall responsibility for rail maintenance rests with Railtrack - but track inspections and maintenance are contracted out to firms such as Balfour Beatty and Jarvis.

Mr Pollard declined to comment when asked whether he thought Railtrack should take over direct maintenance of lines in future.

But he said: "If we had known the line was in anything like that condition there would have been an emergency possession taken and the work would have been done. There was clearly a failing. It will not be allowed to happen again."

A spokesman for Balfour Beatty, which is contracted to carry out rail maintenance on the East Coast Main Line, including at Hatfield, said today responsibility for maintenance already lay with Railtrack. Balfour Beatty and other companies merely provided a service to Railtrack, she said.

She refused to be drawn on the suggestion the work should be carried out directly by Railtrack.

"We're not going to be drawn into commenting on something that we've not had put to us directly," she said.

Mr Herschel said today he was not blaming any one firm for the situation on Britain's railways - but said it made sense for maintenance to be in the hands of a single company.